Political Rhetoric

A Presidential Briefing Book

Mary E. Stuckey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781412856812
• eBook ISBN: 9781351498722
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Rhetoric is among the most important and least understood elements of presidential leadership. Presidents have always wielded rhetoric as one tool of governance—and that rhetoric was always intended to facilitate political ends, such as image building, persuasion of the mass public, and inter-branch government persuasion. But as mass media has grown and then fragmented, as the federal bureaucracy has continued to both expand and calcify, and as partisanship has heightened tensions both within Congress and between Congress and the Executive, rhetoric is an increasingly important element of presidential governance.

Scholars have derived ways to explain how these developments and the presidents' use of rhetoric have contributed to and detracted from the health of American democracy. This briefing book offers a succinct reflection on the ways in which historical developments have encouraged the use of political rhetoric. It explores strategies of "going public" to provide some leverage over the political system and the lessons one might derive from these choices.

This essential analysis, written for lay readers, scholars, students, and future presidents, is the first in Transaction's innovative Presidential Briefings series. Mary E. Stuckey covers the scholarly literature with authority and offers examples of rhetoric that have lasting influence.

ONE
THE PUBLIC, THE MEDIA, AND THE PRESIDENCY

Roughly three weeks before signing a proclamation pardoning Richard M. Nixon “for all offenses against the United States which he . . . has committed or may have committed,” President Gerald R. Ford spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Chicago, Illinois. Ford had been president for five days, taking the Oath of Office on August 12, 1974, following Nixon's resignation. In one of his first acts as president, Ford declared his intention to throw “the weight of my Presidency into the scales of justice on the side of leniency” and pardon at least some of those who had evaded the draft and refused to serve in Vietnam. The decision to offer conditional amnesty to draft evaders was not unexpected, although it was certainly controversial. What interests us here, however, is not just the controversy attending the decision but also the choice to announce it to the VFW, a group highly unlikely to support the president's policy. In deciding to face a presumptively hostile audience, the president earned some praise for political courage while potentially taking some of the controversial edge off the announcement. His real audience, then, was the media and the American people. The immediate audience served his larger purpose of conveying a particular kind of image to those larger audiences.

As in this case, it is always true that presidents have to think of their rhetoric in terms of a complicated set of audiences. Good speakers adapt their speech to their audiences, both identifying with them and wielding that sense of identification to the speaker's ends, often through association and dissociation-dividing the audience from some values, beliefs, and policies and attaching them to others. Because of the centrality of audience to rhetorical practices, this chapter offers both historical and analytic overviews of relationship between the president, the mass public, and the role of political rhetoric in that relationship. The theme of this chapter is change and stability. Many scholars argue that during the twentieth century, changes in communication technology altered the way the nation was governed. Presidents, most notably Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and perhaps Barack Obama, were able to master the technologies of their day and forge a particular kind of relationship with the mass public. Because that relation-ship is largely extra-institutional, however, it modifies the politics of presidential governance but has little effect on the institutional arrangements in which that governance is embedded. But once presidents began to routinely emphasize their relationship with the mass public as part of their leadership strategy, they began to govern in public and with public opinion as defined and measured by polls. Despite changes in context and technology, however, the underlying logic of presidential communication has remained stable.

Shifting to more public aspects of the office, some scholars argue, deemphasized private negotiation. This shift from private to public accompanied a similar shift from elite to mass-based politics, brought about by a combination of developing communication technologies and an expanded electorate. This chapter discusses the contours of these shifts, focusing on the ways they have changed the presidency as part of the political system and what this means in terms of the institution's more stable rhetorical practices. Beginning with the transformations wrought by Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration and continuing into the contemporary era, the chapter points to the ways in which many things have changed but the underlying logic of presidential communication has remained the same.

The Public Presidency

Scholars associate a multitude of changes with the persona and practices of Franklin D. Roosevelt. But it is also worth noting that many of the political and rhetorical changes we attribute to him were broad in scope and that Roosevelt, whose organizational ability and personal magnetism were unquestionable, was not alone in wielding either talent. Politics in the 1930s were changing, and they were doing so nationally, not just in the Oval Office. Many of these changes had begun prior to Roosevelt's presidency. While many things may have changed in the 1930s, the practices of campaigning did not really alter all that much—the election cycle was still very short, and patronage rather than public politics was the rule. Politics in the 1930s was still very much about elites—parties were stronger, and also less democratic, than they are now; political power was more clearly defined and more clearly structured. State party leaders, for instance, exercised significant power over national party nominations, and had considerable responsibilities in terms of getting out the vote and other electoral activities.

Beginning with the Roosevelt administration, however, politics began to shift. These changes, usually discussed as “candidate-centered politics,” became routine by the 1980s and altered both campaigns and governance, diminishing the role of parties in both processes. Two things contributed to the shift from an emphasis on party organization to more ad hoc organizations focused on specific candidates. The first of these is television. Because of the ways television changed political imperatives, the argument goes, pre-television candidates and presidents such as Harry Truman, who owed his career first to the machinations of the Pendergast machine and then to the organizational politics of the Senate Democrats, would have virtually no chance in running a successful modern presidential campaign. Television undoubtedly contributed to the weakening of political parties and facilitated the growth of a politics that included a sense of the visual, but it is easy to overestimate this effect. James A. Farley, for instance, chair of the Democratic National Committee under Roosevelt and long-time political activist, wrote an undated essay on the “New Breed of Politician” that is worth quoting at length:

In terms of our own history, I cannot conceive of much fundamental change, had the present means of communication been available in 1776. Indeed, for the true greats of our past, they would have made things easier. The granite character of George Washington, which in my opinion is the corner-stone in our Republic's founding, would have been illuminated, not diminished by television. I cannot imagine Klieg lights dimming the fire in Andrew Jackson's eye, nor the fiercest artificial lights obliterating the majestic composure of Abraham Lincoln's mighty spirit. President Theodore Roosevelt's tremendous energy would have been more than a match for an electric machine, and Woodrow Wilson's austere purity would have been conveyed as stemming from the pulse of me deeply human heart within it.

I think the old-time stem-winding orators wouldn't last five minutes today. People today want facts and decision in a terse half-hour, not a four hour exercise in metaphors and similes. In my own time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed all that with his radio fireside chats. The voice was great to be sure, but the public sensed that behind it was an even greater heart. And, as has been elsewhere said, what comes from the heart goes to the heart, whether by radio, TV, or newspaper.

For Farley, then, good politics relies on people of good public character, and this character would be clear to audiences regardless of the medium of communication through which it was conveyed. Like Farley, some scholars argue that the voters are not fools, and are not that easily manipulated by political images, televised or not. This argument directly contradicts the school of thought that argues television renders politics emptier and increasingly vapid, reducing deliberation over issues to mere spectacle. Politics, of course, has always been composed of both spectacle and substance, and politicians who fail to balance these elements are unlikely to be successful.

But for Farley, the medium was not the message, and he did not see a world in which political expertise would ever be displaced by performance. For him, politics always entailed an element of the performative, but was not reducible to it. Farley was no technological determinist, and he was probably correct in arguing “that Harry Byrd could defeat Cary Grant for the office of US Senator in Virginia and . . . Republican Senator Everett Dirksen would be hands down to defeat Paul Newman in Illinois.” Those agreeing with Farley thus would not have attributed Ronald Reagan's victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980 to Reagan's experience as an actor, but to his superior organization, his clearer message, his more charismatic personality, and his political acumen. Similarly, they could explain Barack Obama's defeats of John McCain and Mitt Romney by noting his organizational capacities as well as his rhetorical abilities. Television has increased the importance of candidate performances, but performance alone is not determinative. We trust political rhetoric to the extent that we trust voters to evaluate it. Those evaluations have to be made differently in every different political and technological context.

Political structures are legitimated by rhetoric, and they influence the context and thus the practice of rhetoric as well. The McGovern-Fraser campaign reforms following the 1968 presidential election, for instance, mattered at least as much as television in creating a new kind of audience for presidents, and thus changed the ways presidents communicated with that audience. Those reforms, by mandating equal representation at party conventions, meant that the easiest way for states to comply with that mandate was to eliminate state party conventions and move to a system of primary elections. This eroded the power of party elites in deciding presidential nominees and meant that political success depended not on party loyalty so much as personal appeal. Presidents in fact now not only poll more often, but poll for personality and personal appeal as well as for policy. Personal politics, then, are facilitated both by the mass media and by the political system. These changes have their roots in the practices begun by FDR, and when coupled with other institutional changes such as the growth of the executive branch and the administrative bureaucracy, they have affected the role of the president in the national government and altered the president's relationship with the mass public as well.

Roosevelt thus began a sea change in American politics, in which domestically, significant political power moved from the states and localities to the federal government, and within that government, from Congress to the executive branch. Internationally, the United States took on an increased role, displacing the empires of Europe as the dominant political and military force and contending with the USSR for international hegemony. This contest also invested the president with increased political responsibility, as he became the “leader of the free world.” These changes added a different kind of authority to the institution. It is notable, for example, that John Kennedy's inaugural address specifically included an international audience. Prior to that moment, inaugurals were domestically oriented. Presidents had always spoken for the nation. They now spoke for and represented an important international constituency as well, a move that added both responsibility and increased the office's capacity to act in the international realm.

John Kennedy was, in some ways, the first television president, and both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, who began their political careers in a context dominated by organizational politics, fared less well in one dominated by electronic media. Reagan's inaugural, of course, was the first to include panoramic views of the Capitol as part of the coverage. It certainly did not hurt his public image for his administration to be publicly connected to the various symbols of the nation's past and patriotic present. That administration is thought of as marking the moment when the visuals required by television melded with the politics of the presidency. We may see in the Obama administration a similar moment with social media. But while media forms and formats affect the everyday practices of the presidency in different ways, the underlying logic of presidential communication remains the same. Presidential rhetoric, whether directed at members of other institutions, the mass public, or a varying combination of both, helps create and maintain institutional capacities required for governance. Rhetorical failures will equate to political failures, regardless of the medium of communication, as presidents as different as Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter illustrate. Getting the rhetoric wrong will almost always create obstacles for presidents. Unfortunately for presidents, getting the rhetoric right facilitates but does not guarantee political success. But the fact that rhetoric has limits does not mean that it should be avoided. Like all political resources, rhetoric must be understood and wielded correctly if its benefits are going to be available.

Presidential candidates essentially talk their way into office in the course of campaigns. It is no surprise that presidents seem to think talking alone can solve some of their problems once in office. But it is not nearly that simple. Communicative ability has always been critical to the ways in which presidents govern. That communication has always required some understanding of the ways in which the media can further the president's agenda.

Mediated Presidential Rhetoric

There is good evidence that presidents do not have the power to command, either in Congress or among the mass public, and that their ability to use what Theodore Roosevelt famously referred to as the “bully pulpit” is of limited use in persuading people to take a specific stand on narrowly defined policy issues. But there is another way to understand the role of rhetoric, allowing for the power of presidents to set definitions, to associate certain policies with foundational American values and separate other policies from those values, and to create, maintain, and expand the institutional capacities of the office. Presidents do not directly control public opinion. They can, however, influence it in ways that are not always direct or clearly demonstrable.

Despite the fact that presidential capacities to control public opinion are limited, presidents and the media continue to act as if presidential communication is not only important, but even determinative. This means that regardless of its actual efficacy in terms of short-term, measurable change in public opinion, when presidents speak, the media pay significant attention. Coverage of specifically rhetorical events like inaugurals, State of the Union Addresses, and other major policy speeches remains high even as media coverage of the government and the president in general decrease. These moments continue to generate significant speculation prior to the speech, significant coverage of the speech, and significant commentary after the speech. They thus provide opportunities when the president, her agenda, and her plans for legislating that agenda dominate the nation's political news.

We know, for instance, that the issues presidents focus on in their State of the Union Addresses receive more attention from the media that those they ignore. As Obama's staff put it in a tweet during a presidential visit to General Electric in January 2014, “We're here because you're doing really good stuff that everyone else needs to pay attention to.” Like Obama, all presidents understand that what they say and do receives a disproportionate amount of attention. They can use this, as Obama did at General Electric, to highlight events, people, and practices. Sometimes this is purposeful; presidents can encourage physical fitness by bike riding and jogging, as George W. Bush did. Their hobbies and preferences translate into national trends—sales at McDonald's reportedly went up as a result to Bill Clinton's well-known predilection for Big Macs, and broccoli growers felt the effects when George H. W. Bush's distaste for the vegetable made national news.

Intentionally or not, presidents have an effect on the national agenda. Like the media, they cannot tell the public what to think, but they can help the public decide what to think about, a process by which presidential agendas influenc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Communicating the Presidency
• 1 The Public, the Media, and the Presidency
• 2 Rhetoric from an Institutional Perspective
• 3 Managing Rhetorical Opportunities
• Conclusion: Presidents and Their Rhetoric
• Bibliography